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Internet penetration – India shining kya?

Like me if you have interest in watching Indian Internet market and web user behavior then this post is certainly for you. I see all positive signs now, be it community building or my neighbor/student pressing more and more of Google search button for homeworks.

Here are some of the stats for a world-wide comparison:
(Subscribers per 100 inhabitants)

Denmark 31.9
Netherlands 31.8
Iceland 29.7
Korea 29.1
Switzerland 28.5
Norway 27.7
Finland 27.2
Sweden 26.0
Canada 23.8
Belgium 22.5
United Kingdom 21.6
Luxembourg 20.4
France 20.3
Japan 20.2
United States 19.6
Australia 19.2
Austria 17.3
Germany 17.1
Spain 15.3
Italy 14.8

More details at http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/Broadband%20Commentary.pdf

India is somewhere 0.19. For more of Indian stats click here. Expecting 9 million broadband users by the end of 2007, from 2 million to 9 million in one year, not bad at all.

One stat that really motivated(also surprised) me to think sleep over my old ideas, “13% of American adults report they have downloaded or watched video ads“. Video is happening big time, I too watch ping pong videos on youtube to improve my game at office.

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Crowdsourcing sites with Alu Parathas

I am off again, 2 offs in 3 days, very unusual but a welcome change, compensating for not attending the family gathering on Saturday and for being a mere lodger for last few weeks. What am I doing? I prepared Alu parathas (which tasted more atta than paratha but everyone managed to find some appreciation alphabets) for the breakfast. An entrepreneur can learn few things from Mom, she had managed the risk well by having some backup breakfast ready.

To digest such a heavy breakfast, here are some crowdsourcing sites:

  1. Complexity and Social Networks Blog – Complexity and Social Networks Blog of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science and the Program on Networked Governance, Harvard University.
  2. crowdsourcing.typepad.com by Jeff Howe. He is a wired guy and his article “The Rise of Crowdsourcing” is considered among the alphas in this rack.
  3. creating passionate users – One of my fav. I refer these articles to new recruits. You might have heard of Kathy Sierra. Even Indian news had covered the death threats to her.
  4. freakonomics, good to see that they have moved to NYT. I liked the post, “Who comment on blogs and why?”.
  5. futureofcommunities.com

Will I be reading this today?
Na, I will be reading http://www.37signals.com/svn/ and about hylafax.

Now, will I get a chance to mess up lunch as well? Yes off-course, this time it will be a special vegetable packed omelet and chicken salad :). So cool … enjoy life!

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How many friends do you have?

Happy Friendship day! Am I late for it? I guess no. Friendship cards, friendship shayerri, stolen messages, common message, smses and emails. Oops! blog posts as well. Everything is happening on the F day. Thats so great and here is my post for THE day.

Orkut Friends count How many friends do you have?
One, two, three, ….

Do you remember one of the most frequently asked childhood question, “Johny Johny(change it with your name for personalization), how many friends do you have?” and then you started counting on your fingers, one – Tommy, two – harry, four – popy and ……Also jane and pinky … uncle, I have so many friends!

Get into the time machine and ask this question at different phases of your life, when you were not so moma’s kid, when you were not so young, when you were really young and now when you want to stay young. What would have been your answer?

In past had problems in counting friends? Don’t worry if you haven’t counted your friends in past, here is a way to do it (and once again it is by Google):
orkut making the count easy
Wow, it is even arranged further like best friend and so. Great, not bad at all. I think undoubtedly orkut can be voted as the best friendship tool for the era. Does the count matters? Does the intensity matters? Hey, I don’t know, neither did I ever bought a friendship barometer to measure the intensity nor did I ever borrow an abacus for the count. I have some wonderful friends and I thank life for being so kind to me. Life is so short and don’t bother to categorize, count or measure friendship. Don’t define friendship and let it happen its own way with:

  1. One unplanned smile.
  2. One eye accident.
  3. One unwanted fight.
  4. Many years of silence.
  5. ………….

Life is so short, so be happy with undefined friends and live friendship to its fullest. To be a friend a mine ignore all the above para with one sentence “Be yourself, Be imperfect for a perfect friendship“.

Happy friendship day, happy friendship week and happy friendship year!

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Meet 14 year inventor

When he was 2-week-in-days year old he pressed the unusual button. Instead of running after wind, he started collecting it and its power. The motivating factor was the need. To power his family’s home, young William Kamkwamba built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap.

19-year-old William Kamkwamba, from Malawi, is a born inventor. When he was 14, he built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap, working from rough plans he found in a library book called “Using Energy” and modifying them to fit his needs. The windmill he built powers four lights and two radios in his family home.

Don’t forget to drop a comment on his blog.

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Remove your shoes for tireless work

I was listening to MTV during morning workouts and here is a great health tip to start your tiring day. Remove your shoes whenever possible. Keeping your shoes on makes you more tired. Wow, I do it most of the time :).


3 more (unwanted) tips:

  1. Use workrave.
  2. Don’t chat while working. It takes you only 3 secs to get disturbed but almost a couple of minutes for restoration. Take breaks to chat but don’t mix work with chat.
  3. Walk the talk :), I sometimes walk while on phone (Generally I am on phone for almost 2 to 3 hours).

Enjoy the work that you don’t have to work!

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How much content is enough?

Our new team member, a man with a lot of doubts, Mr Doubts is asking an interesting question, “How much content is enough?“. He is touching a different dimension of it, let me go my own way and I will go the visitor way. My Google experiment is also somewhat related to this. I asked, how many pages are needed in SERP?

Lets ask this question again, How Much Content is Enough Content?
Here is a simpler answer to it. If a visitor is able to find the needed info within

  • 0 click+ 15-30 secs (You have enough content)
  • 1 click + 30 – 1 min (you have average content)
  • 2 clicks + 1 – 3 mins (not enough content)
  • above 3 clicks + above 5 mins (You have no content at all)

How much is enough?
(Does more mean more satisfaction? atleast not for content, right content is imp than more content)

So its not about how much info you have but about availability of info for your visitor at needed time. This is the foremost reason why we search Google in Google. I liked Norvig’s comment, which says, “Data mining is more about data“. Content management is also about content.

Here are sms type hints (I wish I had more time)

  • Forum -> Content generation (cluttered and unconnected)
  • Blog -> Content generation (Consolidated but still unconnected)
  • CMS based article -> Expert Content management
  • Wiki -> Crowd Content Management
  • Smart Search -> Avoiding extra click. I call it a link-less navigation. It takes care of cluttered and unconnected content.

I don’t like reading forums for information as it is too much of work for my brain but most of the time I am without an option. Forum+Wiki+Search makes a deadly combination for content but still a Forum+Search or Blog+Search can give you a better ROI. I am back to morning exercises, have fun. Happy Wed(n)(es)day!